i am actually looking forward to "collateral"

this was my thought too--my thought exactly. no matter how much the trailer tried to make the movie look like a routine thriller, there was something very unusual and arresting in the images mann got of the city.

i hope the hyperrealism of the photography and the hollywood stylization of the characters don't clash in unproductive ways.

xpost

Film negative format (mm/video inches)
Video (HDTV)

Cinematographic process
HDTV (1080p/24)

Aspect ratio
2.35 : 1

mann, in the press kit (i filched this from some website):

"Film doesn't record what our eyes can see at night. I wanted to see into the night, to see everything the naked eye can see and more...[to] see this moody landscape with hills and trees and strange light patterns."

interestingly "once upon a time in america" is in the academy ratio--maybe producers wanted it to look like "the godfather"??? or maybe leone had something in mind...

i'm sure at the end we'll find out he was planning to kill jamie foxx as soon as his "work" was done

"shot by shot, scene by scene, mann, whose recent work includes 'heat' and 'the insider,' may be the best director in hollywood. i don't mean that he's the greatest artist. he lacks such qualities as the tormented humanism of scorses, the generous showmanship and warmth of spielberg, the moral curiosity of the clint eastwood who directed 'unforgiven' and 'mystic river.' but mann has become a master builder of sequences, the opposite of the contemporary action directors who produce a brutally meaningless whirl of movement. methodical and precise, he analyzes a scene into minute components--a door closing, an arm thrust out--and gathers the fragments into seamless units; he wants you to live inside the physical event, not just experience the sensation of it."

why does rosenbaum dump on denby all the time?

i saw Heat just recently for the first time. muy bueno. im excited for collateral

that said:

as for spielberg's "warmth" i'd say it's mostly queasy sentimentality and middle-aged cuteness so i don't know about that.

also to say that mann lacks "moral curiosity" doesn't make much sense to me, although i'm not really sure what denby means by that.

ive seen this film probably 7 or 8 times

i ching

tom cruise empowers jamie foxxxxx

he does

look at us talking about digital video upthread like it wasn't about to completely engulf all filmed entertainment.

(and big lols at us being all like, "widescreen tv isn't gonna be a thing for a LONG time")

diggin this no belt look

maybe in the end... it will be jamie foxxxxxx who teaches tom cruise about ~lyfe~

Yeah, this is a fun thread to read seven years later. Maybe the only time a post of mine was part-composed by a cat?

cool dog crossing street

underselling a COYOTE TROTTING ACROSS THE ROAD TO CHRIS CORNELL

I think tom cruises facial hair is growing at a millimeter a minute

lol @ cgi cruise

RUFFALO

"How are things?"
"Mezzo-mezzo."

bardem was dope in his small role, and how ruffs got sonned in this movie was a nice touch. appreciate the statham cameo, too.

there are a few scenes in this that are just completely stunning

the one in the glass office building at night, and the first few minutes or so when they're in the train towards the end

iirc

Definitely the glass office blackout scene is amazing, especially on the big screen.

RUFFALO

"How are things?"
"Mezzo-mezzo."

― your way better (Eazy), Friday, October 28, 2011 11:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

hah I don't think I've ever consciously noticed ruffalo in a movie before, didn't know that was him until I checked the credits

kind of felt like "oh, so that's who the ladies on ilx go crazy over?" :\

this gives me an idea - create "dinner party" cuts of films like this, all the shots of LA cut and driving cut together with no people in 'em, and you just loop it on the 57" plasma hanging on the wall of your 60th floor penthouse while you berate the porter for insufficiently chilling the shrimp cocktails

haha @ this piece of trivia

To prepare for the movie, Tom Cruise had to make FedEx deliveries in a crowded LA market without anyone recognizing him as Tom Cruise.

i think the ruffalistas would probably remove his 'collateral' look from consideration

still he is pretty great in his small role

Didn't see this when it came out, watched it two or three times on DVD, saw it at the Lightbox tonight. I think the first half's as good as Heat, starts to drag the last half hour. I like seeing Ruffalo and Bardem a couple of years before Zodiac/No Country. IMDB says Debi Mazar plays a Young Professional Woman; missed her completely, tonight and every time. Same godawful rock song shows up a couple of times. Some funny lines scattered about.

The rock song is Audioslave, right?

Ha, OK, yes, as people have said upthread.

Yeah, that's it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DKX-2pa-UE

Ugh. I did find a great YouTube title searching for it: "Collateral Cab Scene."

sometimes I wonder if Audioslave made it to three albums because Michael Mann was secretly bankrolling them

Debi Mazar is half of the arguing couple that's Foxx's first fare of the day, right at the movie's start.

Deleted scene that must have cost a lot to make, considering they flew over LAX:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BisMTKjKgi4

Still love this movie. I know people complain about the last 30 minutes but there's good stuff there, even if it is more standard action fare. Was happy to see EW give it a ten year treatment last year. http://www.ew.com/ew/static/longform/collateral/desktop/

wow, that shot over the airport in the deleted scene!
now we all know how to shake a chopper in LA, thanks vincent

Mazar--of course, duh. I was having trouble last night even remembering any females in the film outside of Pinkett Smith; all I could come up with was the FBI woman and Jamie Foxx's mother.

genuinely the best movie ever

miami vice still my fave mann but every time i rewatch this i find it masterful, the way the successive escalations of the plot eventually push it into this dream/nightmare space that max is stuck in, and then a coyote walks across the road to an audioslave song

I guess I should finally watch this

There are elements of Collateral that have stuck with me for years, like the coyote at night, or the subtle detail that Foxx's cab driving skills, which get Jada to her destination early, are what throws off punctual ninja Cruise and set the whole movie in motion.

miami vice still my fave

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Wednesday, April 14, 2021 1:07 PM (one hour ago)

I like Collateral; it's as good as Heat, I'd say, and you don't have anything like Pacino's hammier moments.

heat is one of my favorite gay films of all time but yeah i think collateral is better. hard for me to choose between it, miami vice, and (the beguiling) blackhat

I don't love Heat as much as other people, though I haven't seen it since it played in theatres, so there's a fair chance I might have a different perspective on it these days. Collateral I liked better at the time, and would probably be more inclined to rewatch today.

it's definitely shorter

1) the funky new hi-def video michael mann is using looks totally amazing

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, July 23, 2004 3:24 AM (sixteen years ago)

it's gonna look awesome no matter what

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, July 23, 2004 3:40 AM (sixteen years ago)

Just watched this for the first time. It does indeed look awesome, Mann's use of available light (= hundreds of different types of artificial light) makes the early HD digital look like Super 16 saturated colour and grain.

noted earlier but lol at many of the OG posts itt. the past is a different country:

yeah, i find that whole "widescreen-on-TV" thing kind of weird. in the beginning (sopranos? E.R.? i forget which was first) it was obviously a sop to the idea that widescreen TVs would take over. but they obviously haven't, and won't for a while.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, July 23, 2004 3:56 AM (sixteen years ago)

i'm sure at the end we'll find out he was planning to kill jamie foxx as soon as his "work" was done

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, July 26, 2004 11:17 PM (sixteen years ago)

And you say you object to Law and Order "on principle"... what principle? It's a police procedural!

― Harold Media (kenan), Saturday, August 7, 2004 5:15 PM (sixteen years ago)

so are hollywood movies really not supposed to show people smoking? cos strangely for a film involving taxi drivers and world-weary cops, i don't think ANYBODY lit up a cigarette. well, i guess smoking is banned in LA nightclubs/bars, so maybe it was a touch of realism...

― ||amateur!st|| (amateurist), Sunday, August 8, 2004 3:02 PM (sixteen years ago)

What phone number can I call you at right now?

― Harold Media (kenan), Monday, August 9, 2004 3:35 PM (sixteen years ago)

Funny, I just watched this again the other night. Holds up really well, not just the bits of comedy but Foxx playing against type, and Cruise, well, playing to type, but a different kind of type. I had forgotten about all the stuff with Jada again at the end, which is pretty generic, but Mann (and Cruise, actually) find some new ways of doing it. For example, one of my favorite moments is Cruise standing outside the train door at maximum pissed off intensity, gun raised, just waiting for Foxx or Jada to poke so much as a finger out. Memorable bits like that almost make up for the relative silliness of those last several minutes, even if Foxx-finally-as-hero does pay off, thematically.

Just rewatched this for the first time since it came out. I remembered it fondly — I'm a Mann fan — but it was better than I even remembered. So gorgeous. A fine entry in the it-all-happens-in-one-night canon, which is one of my favorite subgenres.

Just saw this for the first time! So good! I love LA at night

Fox and Cruz are very good , esp Fox

Ruffalo and Bardem too!

It's great!!!
― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, December 27, 2004 11:18 PM (nineteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

OTM. Rewatched it this week for the first time in 20 years, and I'm pleased that it holds up. In 2004 I was surprised by how much I liked it since my favorite films back then were mostly indie relationship dramas. Now I watch a lot more crime thrillers, and I can appreciate what makes it work within that genre.

Foxx and Cruise are both great, obviously. Twenty years ago I posted that Ruffalo seemed miscast, but he didn't bother me that much this viewing. His look (slicked-back hair, goatee, earring) is a little silly, but I've seen him in enough stuff now that I no longer hold an image of him in You Can Count on Me as the essence of what he's all about. And there's a throughline between his role here and later roles in Spotlight and Dark Waters -- the righteous guy who's doggedly figured out what's really going on.

LA reflecting off the taxi windows while Audioslave plays will never get old.

Spent the first half of the movie eagerly anticipating the Audioslave coyote, hooted and hollered when he finally showed up.

This was too silly for me and I was really keen to love it

I think Tom Cruise's 17yo nihilist expositions are what tipped the scales in my heart away from this. The man is handsome and runs fast; please don't have him speak about the meaninglessness of life.

Lot of great scenes I'll give it that. The best of which: Max finally cracking, shoving Vincent's 17yo nihilism in his face and speeding through red lights. Zoom zoom skrt skrt

i found it empty and echoey and unsatisying and not in a "oh nice its a comment on the nihilism" way in a "the director seems distracted" kind of way

apart from casting cruise its got nothing much really